Russia escaped 60 years of communist dictatorship. They already had bowing to authoritarians as part of their culture. The US should be better than that. Perhaps it’s naivety about what authoritarianism looks like or how it turns on you if you only support it because it is stomping on perceived enemies.
Russia didn’t escape anything. The breakup of the USSR started due to pressure from occupied countries that were forced to be part of the USSR. In under 10 years, they were back to supporting a KGB dictatorship. 2000 and 2004 victories by putin are generally considered to be legitimate and analysis of subsequent elections do not show falsification/pressure as being a matter for going above 50% support.
But I digress. I would argue even when I was living in the US (Bush II, Obama), there were clear early seeds of support for a “managed democracy” approach. The one that came to mind immediately was lack of voting franchise in Washington DC and another one that I later figured out was regional geographic disenfranchisement.
But I do agree that American polemics about freedom are unconvincing and only serve to enable limitation of freedom.
Russia escaped 60 years of communist dictatorship. They already had bowing to authoritarians as part of their culture. The US should be better than that. Perhaps it’s naivety about what authoritarianism looks like or how it turns on you if you only support it because it is stomping on perceived enemies.
Russia didn’t escape anything. The breakup of the USSR started due to pressure from occupied countries that were forced to be part of the USSR. In under 10 years, they were back to supporting a KGB dictatorship. 2000 and 2004 victories by putin are generally considered to be legitimate and analysis of subsequent elections do not show falsification/pressure as being a matter for going above 50% support.
But I digress. I would argue even when I was living in the US (Bush II, Obama), there were clear early seeds of support for a “managed democracy” approach. The one that came to mind immediately was lack of voting franchise in Washington DC and another one that I later figured out was regional geographic disenfranchisement.
But I do agree that American polemics about freedom are unconvincing and only serve to enable limitation of freedom.